I agree with you that "fully autonomous" is a very distant dream. However I would like to point out the secondary or tertiary effects of such breakthroughs whic

I agree with you that "fully autonomous" is a very distant dream. However I would like to point out the secondary or tertiary effects of such breakthroughs which people often fail to predict in the beginning. Invention of bulb did not replace candles but it helped humans be productive even after sunset leading to unimaginable gain in human productivity that has propelled us forward since then. I will not see "self driving cars" not just as replacement of our Camry and Prius but it could be modified to do lot more things we currently have not imagined. One angle I can think of is that building an environment designed specifically for such vehicles. Currently most of the challenges come from the fact that the car has to run in an extremely unpredictable environment. What if we could build isolated lanes or even exclusive roads for such vehicles ? What if we could build housing complexes, airports, parking lots etc.